Friday, May 23, 2008
Zappos pays new employees to quit
The online shoe (etc.) company Zappos makes its new employees an offer after one week on the job ... $1,000 to quit. Crazy, you say? Maybe. But it's the way they ensure new employees are committed to their culture. Read the full article by Bill Taylor.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Bionic Age Begins
Oscar Pistorius, who was born without the tibia bones in his lower legs, is causing quite a stir in the track and field world as the Beijing Olympics approach. Pistorius is recording race times that no other disabled athlete has ever achieved and is primed to compete for a spot on the Olympic team.
His performance has prompted claims that the prosthetic blades he uses to run give him an unfair advantage over his competitors. The blades, they say, provide stronger propulsion than a natural human ankle. An MIT study disputed this claim and so the granddaddy of track and field adjudicating bodies gave Pistorius the okay to compete.
And so the bionic era is upon us. We've seen it coming for years. Genetic engineering. Digital implants. Steroids. Human growth hormone. And now an amputee with prosthetic legs may be superior to an athlete with "only" natural parts.
Science fiction has played this angle for decades, from Darth Vader to the Borg, from Steve Austin to Gattaca's genetic perfection, from HAL to The Matrix. All portrayed humans interacting with technology to integrate man and machine. Bigger, faster, stronger, indeed.
We're integrating our bodies with technology at the same time we're integrating our minds with technology. I've posted a couple items in this space about people's relationship with Facebook ... Who is the real you? What is the difference these days between real and digital?
How long will it be before kids are implanting chips in their brains that allow them to play video games using only their minds - no hand-eye coordination required? Or enter a virtual reality where they might be the person they've always wanted to be instead of the person they are? Second Life is just such an experience for millions of online users.
So, the next decade or two is going to be interesting. Technology and processing power may create a whole new being that makes us mere homo sapiens feel oh so inferior.
His performance has prompted claims that the prosthetic blades he uses to run give him an unfair advantage over his competitors. The blades, they say, provide stronger propulsion than a natural human ankle. An MIT study disputed this claim and so the granddaddy of track and field adjudicating bodies gave Pistorius the okay to compete.
And so the bionic era is upon us. We've seen it coming for years. Genetic engineering. Digital implants. Steroids. Human growth hormone. And now an amputee with prosthetic legs may be superior to an athlete with "only" natural parts.
Science fiction has played this angle for decades, from Darth Vader to the Borg, from Steve Austin to Gattaca's genetic perfection, from HAL to The Matrix. All portrayed humans interacting with technology to integrate man and machine. Bigger, faster, stronger, indeed.
We're integrating our bodies with technology at the same time we're integrating our minds with technology. I've posted a couple items in this space about people's relationship with Facebook ... Who is the real you? What is the difference these days between real and digital?
How long will it be before kids are implanting chips in their brains that allow them to play video games using only their minds - no hand-eye coordination required? Or enter a virtual reality where they might be the person they've always wanted to be instead of the person they are? Second Life is just such an experience for millions of online users.
So, the next decade or two is going to be interesting. Technology and processing power may create a whole new being that makes us mere homo sapiens feel oh so inferior.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Facebook: the web site of record
This weekend, a 24-year-old friend was talking about this really cool event she attended. Of course, she documented her fun time by taking lots of photos and said, "I can't wait to get these up on Facebook."
Again, I ask... if something is not on Facebook, did it really happen?
Again, I ask... if something is not on Facebook, did it really happen?
Saturday, May 10, 2008
The wisdom of Warren Buffett
In an interview published in the April 28, 2008, edition of Fortune magazine, Warren Buffett said this about the looming economic downturn...
"...it seems like everybody says it'll be short and shallow, but it looks like it's just the opposite."
Buffett went on to say that deleveraging the mortgage industry is "going to be painful." We've been stimulating the economy through debt, he said, and deconstructing the debt and creating more positive economic stimulation will not be easy. But he remains highly optimistic about the U.S. economy in the long-term.
"...it seems like everybody says it'll be short and shallow, but it looks like it's just the opposite."
Buffett went on to say that deleveraging the mortgage industry is "going to be painful." We've been stimulating the economy through debt, he said, and deconstructing the debt and creating more positive economic stimulation will not be easy. But he remains highly optimistic about the U.S. economy in the long-term.
"Scrubs" moving to ABC
Okay, so I'm not up on the latest TV chatter.
Yesterday, I said the "Scrubs" series finale was lame and seemed like just another episode - and a not very good one at that.
Well, apparently, it seemed like just another episode because it was ... ABC is picking up 18 episodes of "Scrubs" to run in its fall schedule. "Scrubs" is produced by ABC Studios and has apparently always had a rocky relationship with NBC, which is probably one of the reasons the show has gotten kicked around the NBC schedule so much.
My bad.
Yesterday, I said the "Scrubs" series finale was lame and seemed like just another episode - and a not very good one at that.
Well, apparently, it seemed like just another episode because it was ... ABC is picking up 18 episodes of "Scrubs" to run in its fall schedule. "Scrubs" is produced by ABC Studios and has apparently always had a rocky relationship with NBC, which is probably one of the reasons the show has gotten kicked around the NBC schedule so much.
My bad.
Friday, May 9, 2008
The wisdom of George Will
George Will is one of my favorite columnists. Here is an excerpt from his April 20 Washington Post column...
The Fed has no mandate to be the dealmaker for Wall Street socialism. The Fed's mission is to preserve the currency as a store of value by preventing inflation. Its duty is not to avoid a recession at all costs; the way to get a big recession is to engage in frenzied improvisations because a small recession, aka a correction, is deemed intolerable. The Fed should not try to produce this or that rate of economic growth or unemployment.
After the tech bubble burst in 2000, the Fed opened the money spigot to lower interest rates and keep the economy humming. And since the bursting of the housing bubble, which was partly caused by that opened spigot, the Fed has again lowered interest rates, which for now are negative — lower than the inflation rate, which the open spigot will aggravate.
A surge of inflation might mean the end of the world as we have known it. Twenty-six percent of the $9.4 trillion of U.S. debt is held by foreigners. Suppose they construe Fed policy as serving an unspoken (and unspeakable) U.S. interest in increasing inflation, which would amount to the slow devaluation — partial repudiation — of the nation's debts. If foreign holders of U.S. Treasury notes start to sell them, interest rates will have to spike to attract the foreign money that enables Americans to consume more than they produce.
Having maxed out many of their 1.4 billion credit cards, between 2001 and 2006 Americans tapped $1.2 trillion of their housing equity. Business Week reports that the middle-class debt-to-income ratio is now 141 percent, double that of 1983.
The Fed has no mandate to be the dealmaker for Wall Street socialism. The Fed's mission is to preserve the currency as a store of value by preventing inflation. Its duty is not to avoid a recession at all costs; the way to get a big recession is to engage in frenzied improvisations because a small recession, aka a correction, is deemed intolerable. The Fed should not try to produce this or that rate of economic growth or unemployment.
After the tech bubble burst in 2000, the Fed opened the money spigot to lower interest rates and keep the economy humming. And since the bursting of the housing bubble, which was partly caused by that opened spigot, the Fed has again lowered interest rates, which for now are negative — lower than the inflation rate, which the open spigot will aggravate.
A surge of inflation might mean the end of the world as we have known it. Twenty-six percent of the $9.4 trillion of U.S. debt is held by foreigners. Suppose they construe Fed policy as serving an unspoken (and unspeakable) U.S. interest in increasing inflation, which would amount to the slow devaluation — partial repudiation — of the nation's debts. If foreign holders of U.S. Treasury notes start to sell them, interest rates will have to spike to attract the foreign money that enables Americans to consume more than they produce.
Having maxed out many of their 1.4 billion credit cards, between 2001 and 2006 Americans tapped $1.2 trillion of their housing equity. Business Week reports that the middle-class debt-to-income ratio is now 141 percent, double that of 1983.
"Scrubs" finale fell flat
I've always liked "Scrubs," the NBC show about young doctors and their wacky hijinks. It is often a brilliant tongue-in-cheek, alternate-reality kind of experience. From Dr. Cox's arrogance (for which John McGinley should have won several Emmys by now) to J.D. and Turk's man-love, it's always been a show with a very unique comic flavor. Its brilliance is inconsistent, though, and "Scrubs" has never been a show for everyone, which explains why it's generally been disrespected by its network, the awards people and mass audiences.
The show takes chances - sometimes it hits, sometimes it misses. Last night's series finale with its fairy tale allegory was a big whiff. It was unfortunate. I was hoping "Scrubs" would go out with a bang. I suppose series finales are inevitably disappointing, but this one was especially so.
But there was one redeeming element in the "Scrubs" finale, although not enough to save the whole. The show refused to bring closure to the series-long, on-again, off-again relationship between J.D. and Elliot. The show stayed true to itself by not giving in to the kind of Ross-Rachel, schlocky, mad-dash-to-the-airport ending that ruins so many shows' finales ("Friends"). The "Scrubs" finale was ruined in other ways, but at least it was in ways that reflect the spirit of the show. I respect that.
In fact, now that I think about it, the "Scrubs" finale was not really a finale at all; more like just another episode ... albeit a bad one. Nothing changed; no one moved, got married, died, graduated, had a baby. If they were going to end their series with just another episode, it's too bad they couldn't have hatched one of their classics instead of one of their eggs.
The show takes chances - sometimes it hits, sometimes it misses. Last night's series finale with its fairy tale allegory was a big whiff. It was unfortunate. I was hoping "Scrubs" would go out with a bang. I suppose series finales are inevitably disappointing, but this one was especially so.
But there was one redeeming element in the "Scrubs" finale, although not enough to save the whole. The show refused to bring closure to the series-long, on-again, off-again relationship between J.D. and Elliot. The show stayed true to itself by not giving in to the kind of Ross-Rachel, schlocky, mad-dash-to-the-airport ending that ruins so many shows' finales ("Friends"). The "Scrubs" finale was ruined in other ways, but at least it was in ways that reflect the spirit of the show. I respect that.
In fact, now that I think about it, the "Scrubs" finale was not really a finale at all; more like just another episode ... albeit a bad one. Nothing changed; no one moved, got married, died, graduated, had a baby. If they were going to end their series with just another episode, it's too bad they couldn't have hatched one of their classics instead of one of their eggs.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
From Thomas Friedman...
From New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, author of The World is Flat...
Who Will Tell the People?
Traveling the country these past five months while writing a book, I’ve had my own opportunity to take the pulse, far from the campaign crowds. My own totally unscientific polling has left me feeling that if there is one overwhelming hunger in our country today it’s this: People want to do nation-building. They really do. But they want to do nation-building in America.
They are not only tired of nation-building in Iraq and in Afghanistan, with so little to show for it. They sense something deeper — that we’re just not that strong anymore. We’re borrowing money to shore up our banks from city-states called Dubai and Singapore. Our generals regularly tell us that Iran is subverting our efforts in Iraq, but they do nothing about it because we have no leverage — as long as our forces are pinned down in Baghdad and our economy is pinned to Middle East oil.
Our president’s latest energy initiative was to go to Saudi Arabia and beg King Abdullah to give us a little relief on gasoline prices. I guess there was some justice in that. When you, the president, after 9/11, tell the country to go shopping instead of buckling down to break our addiction to oil, it ends with you, the president, shopping the world for discount gasoline.
We are not as powerful as we used to be because over the past three decades, the Asian values of our parents’ generation — work hard, study, save, invest, live within your means — have given way to subprime values: “You can have the American dream — a house — with no money down and no payments for two years.”
That’s why Donald Rumsfeld’s infamous defense of why he did not originally send more troops to Iraq is the mantra of our times: “You go to war with the army you have.” Hey, you march into the future with the country you have — not the one that you need, not the one you want, not the best you could have.
A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Singapore. In J.F.K.’s waiting lounge we could barely find a place to sit. Eighteen hours later, we landed at Singapore’s ultramodern airport, with free Internet portals and children’s play zones throughout. We felt, as we have before, like we had just flown from the Flintstones to the Jetsons. If all Americans could compare Berlin’s luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II.
How could this be? We are a great power. How could we be borrowing money from Singapore? Maybe it’s because Singapore is investing billions of dollars, from its own savings, into infrastructure and scientific research to attract the world’s best talent — including Americans.
And us? Harvard’s president, Drew Faust, just told a Senate hearing that cutbacks in government research funds were resulting in “downsized labs, layoffs of post docs, slipping morale and more conservative science that shies away from the big research questions.” Today, she added, “China, India, Singapore ... have adopted biomedical research and the building of biotechnology clusters as national goals. Suddenly, those who train in America have significant options elsewhere.”
Much nonsense has been written about how Hillary Clinton is “toughening up” Barack Obama so he’ll be tough enough to withstand Republican attacks. Sorry, we don’t need a president who is tough enough to withstand the lies of his opponents. We need a president who is tough enough to tell the truth to the American people. Any one of the candidates can answer the Red Phone at 3 a.m. in the White House bedroom. I’m voting for the one who can talk straight to the American people on national TV — at 8 p.m. — from the White House East Room.
Who will tell the people? We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country.
I don’t know if Barack Obama can lead that, but the notion that the idealism he has inspired in so many young people doesn’t matter is dead wrong. “Of course, hope alone is not enough,” says Tim Shriver, chairman of Special Olympics, “but it’s not trivial. It’s not trivial to inspire people to want to get up and do something with someone else.”
It is especially not trivial now, because millions of Americans are dying to be enlisted — enlisted to fix education, enlisted to research renewable energy, enlisted to repair our infrastructure, enlisted to help others. Look at the kids lining up to join Teach for America. They want our country to matter again. They want it to be about building wealth and dignity — big profits and big purposes. When we just do one, we are less than the sum of our parts. When we do both, said Shriver, “no one can touch us.”
Who Will Tell the People?
Traveling the country these past five months while writing a book, I’ve had my own opportunity to take the pulse, far from the campaign crowds. My own totally unscientific polling has left me feeling that if there is one overwhelming hunger in our country today it’s this: People want to do nation-building. They really do. But they want to do nation-building in America.
They are not only tired of nation-building in Iraq and in Afghanistan, with so little to show for it. They sense something deeper — that we’re just not that strong anymore. We’re borrowing money to shore up our banks from city-states called Dubai and Singapore. Our generals regularly tell us that Iran is subverting our efforts in Iraq, but they do nothing about it because we have no leverage — as long as our forces are pinned down in Baghdad and our economy is pinned to Middle East oil.
Our president’s latest energy initiative was to go to Saudi Arabia and beg King Abdullah to give us a little relief on gasoline prices. I guess there was some justice in that. When you, the president, after 9/11, tell the country to go shopping instead of buckling down to break our addiction to oil, it ends with you, the president, shopping the world for discount gasoline.
We are not as powerful as we used to be because over the past three decades, the Asian values of our parents’ generation — work hard, study, save, invest, live within your means — have given way to subprime values: “You can have the American dream — a house — with no money down and no payments for two years.”
That’s why Donald Rumsfeld’s infamous defense of why he did not originally send more troops to Iraq is the mantra of our times: “You go to war with the army you have.” Hey, you march into the future with the country you have — not the one that you need, not the one you want, not the best you could have.
A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Singapore. In J.F.K.’s waiting lounge we could barely find a place to sit. Eighteen hours later, we landed at Singapore’s ultramodern airport, with free Internet portals and children’s play zones throughout. We felt, as we have before, like we had just flown from the Flintstones to the Jetsons. If all Americans could compare Berlin’s luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II.
How could this be? We are a great power. How could we be borrowing money from Singapore? Maybe it’s because Singapore is investing billions of dollars, from its own savings, into infrastructure and scientific research to attract the world’s best talent — including Americans.
And us? Harvard’s president, Drew Faust, just told a Senate hearing that cutbacks in government research funds were resulting in “downsized labs, layoffs of post docs, slipping morale and more conservative science that shies away from the big research questions.” Today, she added, “China, India, Singapore ... have adopted biomedical research and the building of biotechnology clusters as national goals. Suddenly, those who train in America have significant options elsewhere.”
Much nonsense has been written about how Hillary Clinton is “toughening up” Barack Obama so he’ll be tough enough to withstand Republican attacks. Sorry, we don’t need a president who is tough enough to withstand the lies of his opponents. We need a president who is tough enough to tell the truth to the American people. Any one of the candidates can answer the Red Phone at 3 a.m. in the White House bedroom. I’m voting for the one who can talk straight to the American people on national TV — at 8 p.m. — from the White House East Room.
Who will tell the people? We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country.
I don’t know if Barack Obama can lead that, but the notion that the idealism he has inspired in so many young people doesn’t matter is dead wrong. “Of course, hope alone is not enough,” says Tim Shriver, chairman of Special Olympics, “but it’s not trivial. It’s not trivial to inspire people to want to get up and do something with someone else.”
It is especially not trivial now, because millions of Americans are dying to be enlisted — enlisted to fix education, enlisted to research renewable energy, enlisted to repair our infrastructure, enlisted to help others. Look at the kids lining up to join Teach for America. They want our country to matter again. They want it to be about building wealth and dignity — big profits and big purposes. When we just do one, we are less than the sum of our parts. When we do both, said Shriver, “no one can touch us.”
Monday, May 5, 2008
Iron Man worth the money
I saw Iron Man last night, the new Robert Downey, Jr., movie based on the Marvel comic book. Two thumbs up. Four stars. Must-see. Good stuff. Name your superlative. Check it out if you like that sort of thing.
I've never read an Iron Man comic and am not familiar with the character and his history, but this movie was GOOD.
Oh, and stay for the credits. After they roll, there is an extra scene setting up the next movie that you won't want to miss. Very cool.
I've never read an Iron Man comic and am not familiar with the character and his history, but this movie was GOOD.
Oh, and stay for the credits. After they roll, there is an extra scene setting up the next movie that you won't want to miss. Very cool.
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